


A Sinking Feeling

by alistairweekend



Series: Lyrie Aldavir [2]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Angst and Humor, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Possibly Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-16 05:04:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15429606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alistairweekend/pseuds/alistairweekend
Summary: aka "Lyrie gets drunk and says 'f***' a lot."Grieving over a loved one is hard, especially when there's a festival going on to venerate the one who is responsible for their death... Lyrie makes some poor decisions on this day, but luckily she has a good friend to look out for her, albeit in his own special way.Rated Teen for language. Categorized as Gen because nothing explicitly romantic happens, but it is implied that one character has feelings for the other.





	A Sinking Feeling

**Author's Note:**

> For context, here are a few things to note:  
> \- Lyrie had a twin sister named Fie who recently sacrificed herself to save the citizens of another party member's home town.  
> \- Lyrie and Cassian (another player character) split off from the main party for a time because of a major disagreement regarding the main quest. This takes place early on in the year-long time skip we did as a group.  
> \- Lyrie's full name is Lirena, and Fie's full name is Fiela. They were named after twin goddesses of evil and good, respectively. It was recently revealed that Fiela, the "good" goddess, is actually the evil one. Within this writing, "Fiela" always refers to the goddess, while "Fie" is Lyrie's sister.

They didn’t know.   
  
Lyrie had to consciously remind herself of the fact each time a stranger greeted her that day. She had known the festival was coming up, but she hadn’t been prepared for how difficult it would be to endure it all: a day dedicated to exalting the goddess that not only had killed Lyrie’s sister, but was intending to end the lives of every miserable person celebrating the damned holiday.    
  
The goddess might as well have punched Lyrie in the face personally. She could practically feel an aura of smugness emanating from the town as decorations were hung and praises shouted. The sad truth was obvious: people thought that if they celebrated hard and loud enough, Fiela would save them from the dragons and volcanoes and everything else hailing the end of the world that had happened in the past month.   
  
But they didn’t know.   
  
“Fiela’s blessing!”    
  
“May Fiela smile upon you on this grand day.”    
  
“Glory to Fiela!”   
  
Even people within her own base, the people serving the queen and therefore serving  _ against _ Fiela, didn’t know. Lyrie tried settling for tearing down decorations around the fortress whenever no one was looking, a small act of rebellion to vent her frustration  _ somewhere _ , but it proved to not be enough. By the end of the day, Lyrie felt ready to explode.   
  
At dusk, she slipped out of the fortress and crossed the bridge to the mainland. The real festivities were beginning  now, the first fireworks of the night sparkling over the city. Lyrie avoided the main streets, slipping through the back alleys she knew by heart to reach one of the only dock taverns that survived the eruption. The place was nearly empty, its patrons likely having gone to the main street, or at least one of the nicer taverns closer to town.   
  
“Give me the highest quality of whatever this much will buy.” Lyrie dropped a small sack of gold coins on the counter.    
  
The bartender’s eyes widened a fraction. “Um... Anything specific in mind?”   
  
“Whiskey. Rum. Whatever. Surprise me.” Lyrie’s voice had an edge to it that cued the bartender she was not in the mood for talking. He hurriedly gathered three bottles from the shelf behind him and handed them over.    
  
Lyrie nodded in thanks, hooking one to her belt and taking the other two in each hand. She popped open the bottle in her right hand and took a swig as she walked out.   
  
Debris obscured the path to the beach. Lyrie was glad for it, if only because it kept festival-goers from seeking out the shore. By the time she reached her destination near the overhang cliff that supported her old home, she had drained the first bottle.   
  
She glanced around at the chunks of wood surrounding her feet. Some of it belonged to the half of the mansion that was destroyed when all the volcanoes, including the lava pit below the house, erupted at once. And was that a piece of the stables?    
  
Lyrie couldn’t tell if the burning in her chest should be credited to resentment or the alcohol. Probably both.    
  
Tossing the empty bottle aside, Lyrie began grabbing pieces of wood, building them into a pile. She hoped they were all part of the mansion. “Fuck you,” she muttered to each piece, getting louder and louder until she was nearly yelling. “FUCK YOU!” With a final scream, she struck her sword on a rock and let the sparks take hold of the wood.    
  
She started drinking the next bottle as she waited for the flames to grow, watching in satisfaction. But soon the heat became unbearable, and she stumbled away from the bonfire towards the water, turning her face to the sky.    
  
If she had been less preoccupied, perhaps Lyrie would have appreciated how beautiful the stars were that night, thanks to the lack of light that usually glowed from the docks at night. Instead, her vision blurred, liquid leaking from her eyes and streaking down her cheeks.  _ Damn it. _   
  
“Why’d you leave me, Fie?” Lyrie spoke hoarsely. If Fie’s soul wasn’t in the underworld like Lirena had claimed, maybe it was up above, somewhere. “There’s nothing here for me anymore. How could you do this to me?” Her teeth clenched, and she wiped the tears away with the hem of her sleeve. “What’s the fucking  _ point _ if you’re not here?” Lyrie had been given plenty of opportunities to run away from the mother that abused and terrorized her in her childhood, but she had stayed and endured year after year solely for Fie’s sake. And how was she repaid? Fie willingly giving up her precious life to save a few hundred strangers.   
  
No, it wasn’t entirely Fie’s fault, Lyrie had to remind herself. Their mother and Fiela had taken advantage of her -- molded her into the person that made the kinds of decisions which she believed were for the greater good, but in the end just furthered their sick agendas.   
  
The rage at Fiela’s festival came back to Lyrie in a rush; she drew her sword and attacked another piece of broken building beside her with a scream.   
  
“What the hell are you doing?”   
  
The voice cut across the beach air, quiet but clear. Lyrie looked up to see a large figure standing on the edge of the firelight. Despite being shrouded in shadow, Lyrie immediately knew who it was: Cassian. His arms were crossed and she could just imagine the disapproving frown on his face, but she didn’t care.   
  
A brittle grin formed on Lyrie’s mouth, and she grabbed her last bottle and waved it around. “Celebrating! Wanna join?”   
  
Cassian uncrossed his arms and walked over to Lyrie, looming over her. “You’re being an idiot. Come back to base and sober up; I don’t have time for this.”   
  
In her drunken state, Lyrie found Cassian’s serious demeanor to be amusing rather than imposing. She let out a hollow laugh. “Ha. You’re cute, mister killjoy.” With a spin on her heel, Lyrie tried to walk away... except she slipped, underestimating how badly her balance had been affected.   
  
Behind her, Cassian sighed and caught her by the arm before she hit the ground, and then the world spun even more as he lifted her up and threw her over his shoulder. Lyrie grunted as her stomach hit the spaulder under his cloak -- he might not have been wearing his usual heavy armor, but of course he had some metal plating for protection even in his “casual” clothes.   
  
After a moment of registering what had happened, Lyrie quickly switched from bewildered to annoyed. She tried kicking, but found that Cassian had an arm firmly securing her lower legs, likely anticipating that course of action. But he couldn’t do anything about her arms. Lyrie resorted to hitting Cassian’s back, though her body refused to cooperate completely, her punches translating much softer than she intended. Her tongue had stopped obeying her as well; she shouted, but the belligerent words were incomprehensible.   
  
Cassian walked for perhaps a minute before stopping, silent all the while. Lyrie was too caught up in her attempts to insult Cassian to notice when the sand below had turned into water. Abruptly, he changed his grip on her, lowering her from his shoulder to being held by both arms, one hand under the crook of her legs and the other on her back. Taken off-guard by the sudden change, Lyrie let her arms and legs go limp. The two of them glared at each other, though Lyrie found her eyes slipping to focus on the strangely mesmerizing flicker of firelight against Cassian’s jawline.   
  
“Pull yourself together,” Cassian said, and then he dropped Lyrie.   
  
The shock of the freezing water elicited a gaping gasp from Lyrie as the world came into sharp focus, temporarily dispelling the haze from the alcohol. She flailed and screeched until she found that the water only reached to her knees, at which point she stood up with a slurred, “Ffffuck you.”   
  
“You’re welcome.” Cassian stood solidly in the same place, not even attempting to avoid the splashes. A moment passed, and much of the tension both within and between them faded. Maybe Lyrie was imagining things, but it seemed like some of the anger that always boiled beneath his calm exterior had dissipated, leaving behind a sense of simple weariness. He sighed again, then undid his cloak and draped it over Lyrie. “Let’s go.”   
  
The walk back was slow and silent, but Cassian kept a hand on Lyrie’s arm to steady and guide her.

***

Lyrie woke up in her bed come morning. The light hurt her eyes, but there wasn’t as much as she expected; glancing over to the window, she saw that the curtains had been drawn. Strange. She usually kept them open.

It came to her attention that there seemed to be an extra layer between herself and the blanket that covered her. Although her head pounded when she moved it, she craned her neck to investigate and found... Cassian’s cloak. 

_ Oh _ . Lyrie’s cheeks burned in shame as hazy recollections of the previous night surfaced in her mind. She hated that Cassian had seen her like that, but at the same time... she knew she would have to apologize. And perhaps thank him at the same time.

With a twinge in her heart, Lyrie wondered what Fie would say about the whole thing. After the initial concern, there would be teasing about Cassian’s soft side, no doubt. Imagining it brought a ghost of a smile to Lyrie’s lips.

Lyrie knew she should get up, but the bed was soft and Cassian’s cloak comforting, and her eyes didn’t want to open and face the too-bright world. Soon Lyrie dozed off again, fond memories of her sister playing in her mind.


End file.
